theleagueoffandomcom-20200214-history
The League Of...
Origins Fantasy football has been a part of the Chubb family on and off since the days of its conception in the Telegraph newspaper. As it was analogue back in those days we relied on Tony McGahey (father of CJ) to bring his paper over every week to ensure that Dan, Jack and the J-Dogg were up to date with their fantasy teams. Dan would always be keen to find out how his strikeforce of Mark Stein and Philomen Masinga were getting on. The first signs that a ridiculously complex league could be sustained was subsequent season when Jonathan created around 16 teams for a variety of friends and family. He did not enter these into the paper but laboriously collated their scores, on a weekly basis, by hand into hardback exercise books. The resource heavy (pens, lots of pens) nature of this and the seemingly disinterested nature of many of the managers (some of whom had not been told they had teams, others were about 6 years old) meant that this did not catch on and it was up to technology to provide a solution to a number of issues. TRIVIA - Sally Chubb's team name in the aforementioned league was Sharp Teeth's XI - a name that has stuck since. Throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s Fantasy football leagues continued around the world and many League Of... members may have casually competed in them. Jack Chubb fondly remembers the year that he entered a school league under the name Chris Wills, calling his team bangs badgers. Hilarity ensued around the corridors of Porthcawl Comprehensive as the phrase Chris Wills bangs badgers was pinned up on noticeboards across the school. During this time, messrs Gates, Jobs and the guys who invented the internet were doing some sterling work in helping bring fantasy football to the masses. Back in 2004, administrator Dan Chubb was a mere placement student in the Research and Development department of Thames Water. Here he and the other placement students met PhD student and developing zeolite expert Andy Thornton who, considering he was about 38 at the time, should have been hanging around with people his own age. Dan and Andy found a common interest in Chemistry but more importantly football. After some discussions they set up a 2 player fantasy league on some obscure website. Originally intended to be called The League Of Gentlemen, a premature mouse-click truncated this title, and The League Of was born. TRIVIA - Andy won this league on the final weekend of the season 2005/2006 In 2005, Dan was at home for a long summer following his graduation from Bath university and decided to set up another league. After the disappointment of the previous website he scouted around and identified the Fantasy Premierleague site as a suitable successor. Contacting his family and friends from both home and university the membership grew to around 20 teams. On the weekend that the league started Jack Chubb, on his return from university had invited a number of friends from the Warwick poker society to 27 West Road. (If CJ asks, this number was 1 and his name was Mark Larsen) and hosted a poker tournament. During this tournament, eliminated players (such as Andpud, Bold, Sagar) were encouraged to create a team and enter it into the League Of... 37 Entries were eventually made and the modern era of The League Of... was born. The league itself that season was a closely fought affair with Christian Bold, Sagar Patel and most notably Elliot Cole pushing Jack all the way before the younger Chubb brother won the title. For the final placings in that season check out The League Of... 2005/2006. 2006/2007 Following the roaring success of the first season, the 2006/07 season came back with a bang. 40 players this year with a number of new members included Dave Walker and Phil Green who immediately became a fixture on the forums. From early in the season the usual suspects were near the top including Jack Chubb, Elliot Cole and Christian Bold, with Ell securing top spot just before Christmas with the controversial gameweek that has become known as "The Gameweek that Ell's 2nd and 3rd Subs Came Off His Bench Scoring Him 20 points Despite Them Being Everton Players Who Lost 3-2 To Chelsea". Jack didn't let this phase him however and took the initiative in the new year storming to his second title. Elliot on the other hand plummeted to a mid table finish and has not challenged the top of the league since. For the final placings in that season check out The League Of... 2006/2007. Jonathan Chubb often talks about this year being the season that he got both his team and his daughter Grace's team into the Top 4. Other managers like to think of it as the year that the J-Dogg couldn't win anything despite having 2 teams. The 2006/2007 season also saw the emergence of The Cup Of..., a knockout competition later to be plagiarised by Fantasy Premierleague themselves, as well as the first annual End Of... Season Dinner. Follow the links for more details. At the End Of Season Dinner 2006/07 the League winner was presented with a newly obtained trophy named after Nigerian international Sunday Oliseh (see picture). 2007/2008 One of the most controversial decisions made by the administrator was the limiting of The League Of... to only 32 teams. This decision was made because of : a) the increasing numbers of players who he didn't know/like b) managers weren't managing their teams c) The ease with which cup competitions could now be organised including his new brainchild The Mug Of... Although the League itself was an unqualified success, it was rather one-sided as Jack Chubb stormed to victory more convincingly than ever before. Incredibly finishing 4th in the entire world after spending 2 weeks in top spot. For the final placings in that season check out The League Of... 2007/2008. 2008/2009 Limited changes were made prior to the 2008/2009 season, but one big change that happened during it was that Jack Chubb didn't win, with John Bull's Red Bulls taking the Sunday Oliseh trophy back to London with them. New members included Owain Thomas and International Man of Mystery Jermaine Girard - Jermaine was subsequently removed from the league. For the second season running Jonathan Chubb was left wondering what might have been after he finished runner up. For the final placings in that season check out The League Of... 2008/2009.